Fairytale III and Leanne Bailey
Tyke That and Georgia Whelan
This hugely popular event saw entries from over 500 native horses and ponies. Dengie as sponsors of the Traditional Gypsy Cob section were on hand to present their championship rosettes to the highest placed competitors in this championship.
Over 50 gypsy cobs took part in the weekend’s dressage championships and the Champions of the Dengie sponsored Intro section were Leanne Bailey riding Moira Johnson’s 8yo Fairytale III with a score of 71.73%. Leanne from Stoke on Trent ,Staffs, has only been riding Poppy since the summer and decided to give affiliated British Dressage a try aiming for the Championships. They were also runners up in the Prelim championship too so a very successful outing for this promising pair. Leanne said:
“Our preparation for the championships hadn’t gone well, in recent tests our percentages were way down on what they had been. She was a bit spooky today with the arena banners and flowers but once she went down the centre line she knew she had a job to do and was brilliant. I can’t believe we won!”
The Novice Pure Bred Championship went to Georgia Whelan from Amersham, Bucks, riding 11 year-old Tyke That. Georgia said after her winning test:
“Ted was Prelim champion here last year so the pressure was on. He’s only completed in three novice tests this year, so I wasn’t coming here thinking I was going to win but to do just that is amazing! He’ll now have a couple of weeks off and then during the winter we’ll focus on training and aiming for the elementary championships next year.”
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